


As long as forever is

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Bad Decisions, Dealfic, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, not so healthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day Sherlock wakes to hellhounds scratching at his door. He's 34 and the deal he made ten years ago has just come due. However, it seems there's more to John than meets the eye and Crowley may not be able to collect as easily as he thinks.</p><p>Written for <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/12432.html?thread=65439888#t65439888">this</a> prompt at the kinkmeme, requesting a fic in which Sherlock has made a deal and John is a prophet, protected by an archangel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As long as forever is

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the amazing [kim47](http://kim47.livejournal.com)

He was twenty-four when he buried a box with a picture of himself. Twenty-four and itching. Twenty-four and life was far too dark and dull.

“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?” The man in front of him flashed a wicked smile, his eyes flickering to black and back. “Some lovely –” he cocked his head and raised one eyebrow, “or handsome – young thing you’d like the attention of? Someone getting on your nerves you need taken care of?”

Still wild-eyed, surprised despite himself, Sherlock stared and didn’t answer.

“You’ve got to tell me, boy, you have to ask for it. What’s it going to be: lust, blood? Bloodlust?” He held out his hands, an invitation, a question. “Or is it something dull, like money or power?”

When Sherlock spoke, his voice cracked with disuse. “Bored.”

A flicker of annoyance passed the demon’s face. “What? You summoned a demon because you were _bored?_ ”

Sherlock shrugged, regaining some of his insouciance. “There was nothing on telly.”

The demon laughed, a hearty, full-throated chuckle, as he took a step closer to Sherlock. “Oh, I’m going to like you.” He gave Sherlock’s gaunt frame a slow up-and-down with renewed interest. “So, you’re bored. What. Do you want me. To do about it?” he punctuated his each pause with a step closer, until Sherlock could smell his foetid breath and see himself in his eyes, gone dark in excitement.

Sherlock scratched at the inside of his arm with dirt-darkened fingers. “I don’t care. I just don’t want to be bored any longer.”

“That I can work with.” The demon tilted his head, appraising. “I’ll give you ten years. Ten years of excitement and thrills before you’re mine.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “And that entails precisely…?”

Another hearty laugh and the demon trailed the backs of his fingers up Sherlock’s scarred forearm. “Your soul. Mine. Forever. In hell.”

Sherlock took a moment to consider: the likelihood of him even having a soul, the possibility of consciousness after death, the existence of hell. “It’s a deal.”

“Good,” said the demon as he pulled Sherlock’s head down, closer, and closed their lips together. Sherlock felt a spark, a fire, a flicker, snap into existence then just as quickly snuff out somewhere in his gut. Then the pressure released and he fell back, alone at the dirt crossroads under the waning moon.

++

John crouched in the shadows, the few sallow, dank places not quite reached by the arms of the sun. The ground below his feet was dry, dust unsettling in lazy puffs with each movement of his boots. Across the square Burgess gestured, directing the men at the door to proceed. John brought up the rear, medical kit ready at his hip; their intel said the building they were raiding housed a number of men injured in a recent attack against a British convoy. They were charged with capturing the insurgents and John was along to make sure they were in fit condition to move.

The team was happy, focused; despite the dull buzzing heat the mission had been textbook clear so far. Following Jordanson, gun tracking the doorway to protect their backs, John stepped into the cool, dark building. They soon found the men on makeshift mattresses in an upstairs room, attended only by an elderly nursemaid and a young child.

John had leaned down to check over the first man when the nursemaid started to speak. Her voice was unexpectedly harsh, a wash of severe, sibilant sounds which seemed to fall from her mouth and fill the room like a dense gas. He didn’t understand the language but the wails cajoled and transfixed, forcing his hands to drop away from the patient.

John craned his head to see her and his vision shifted as her form grew thin, attenuated, and brittle, and a black, oily serpent emerged from each shoulder. Around him, his men moved sluggishly as if each step forward, each reach for a weapon, must contest against a great force. John found his fingers useless, unable to coil around the butt of his gun. Still, her voice slithered and slid, filling their very lungs.

Just as John took one useless, shuddering, all-too-likely-final breath, a flash of brilliant white light consumed the room. A deep, rumbling vibration shook his bones, wrenching deep cracks in the dried stucco walls. John was knocked back, head colliding with the floor, and took one, pure, glorious breath before falling unconscious.

When he came to, the woman was gone and his team sprawled on the floor, all unconscious. In the corner, the young child rocked on his – her? – heels, hands clasping ears and mouth open. The child looked for all the world to be keening in terror but John heard no sound – not a scream, not the creaking of the building as it adjusted to the large fissures running down the walls, not even the padding of feet outside. He touched his fingertips to his ear and they came away red and sticky.

The men they’d come to capture were dead.

The soldiers woke slowly, dazed and uncertain. None remembered anything beyond entering the house. They took the child back with them to camp. She stayed for two days, never speaking, then slipped away unnoticed and drowned in the dry trickle of a creek behind the base.

++

 _Nothing happens to me_ , John wrote, and felt a tickle at the back of his mind.

++

Sherlock was never bored now and if the sounds of howls haunted his dreams, he didn’t remember.

++

Two years since they’d met; two years of plans unspoken but understood, two years of snappish arguments and resigned acceptance, two years of tea and takeaway and giggling at crime scenes.

John wrote the truth in his blog, or near enough. He wrote of actions – of running across the plains of London, of delving its secret depths. He wrote of flames, of flashes of brilliance white hot and burning, of a mind that destroyed and created anew. He wrote of lives beyond death and stories beyond telling.

He didn’t write of eyes cold and piercing, of gazes held just a little too long. He didn’t write of a fierce magnetic pull between two bodies, of flesh and teeth and blood pounding and clashing. He didn’t write of love, but it was there.

++

He was thirty-four when the dogs sniffed at the door. Thirty-four and curled around the man he loved. Thirty-four and life was far, far more interesting than he had ever credited it.

They burst, stinking and vile, through the door. Sherlock could hear their growls, a bone-deep vibration, and feel the heat of their slavering jowls. He scrambled in the dark to find a weapon, throwing a lamp to distract the hounds while his hands felt for the knife in his bedside table drawer. The dogs advanced, undeterred, but the crash awakened John.

“Sherlock? What the fuck?”

“John!” Sherlock’s voice was urgent, insistent, as with one arm he shoved John back and with the other finally found the sharp silver knife. He brandished it and felt a pouncing weight on the bed, could just make out in the dark the rough, mangy outline of a huge, skeletal hound advancing upon him. He reached his arm back and just as he shoved it forward, plunging the knife through the upper jaw of the beast above him, a flash of brilliant light obscured the room.

Sherlock was thrown back with the force of the explosion, body landing heavily against John’s torso and head throbbing worse than any detox. John was taking shallow, shaky breaths, his chest rising in a fearful, syncopated rhythm. The room turned cold as the glass of the window shattered onto the street below.

With no dogs in sight, Sherlock dropped the knife and turned to John, hands frantic over his exposed skin, grappling for wounds. “John. John!”

“Sherlock!” John’s hands gripped his forearms, stilling him, and their eyes caught. “Calm down. I’m okay. We’re both okay.” John’s pupils were blown wide and dark; not afraid, but awed. “I – jesus, what the fuck, Sherlock?”

Sherlock shook his head, his mind racing through possibilities. He darkly remembered a half-forgotten day, a debt being called up. He knew that this could only be the end; knew and railed against that knowledge.

“I don’t know, John, I’ve never felt anything like it.” His eyes began to dart around the room, searching for evidence. “Like an explosion, but without a device – an explosion of light rather than matter.”

“No, Sherlock, not the light – what caused it? What was threatening us? It only ever happens when something dangerous is nearby,” he mused, “but I didn’t see anything.”

Sherlock stared, suddenly finding himself mute.

“There must have been something, right? You had a knife; you saw something I didn’t.”

Sherlock took a deep, shuddering breath. “This has happened to you before.” John averted his eyes. “You said – when something dangerous is near. In Afghanistan?”

John nodded minutely. “I don’t know what it is. But it’s saved my life twice and no other witnesses have ever remembered.”

Sherlock took a deep breath. “It was because of the dogs. They were here for me; I can only surmise that is why I remember the light as well.”

“The dogs?”

Sherlock nodded and, with far less than his usual eloquence, recounted to John the story of his deal.

++

Deals John was familiar with; the promise of your heart’s desire within reach, the terms unimportant. It did not surprise him to hear that Sherlock had sought his out, had searched for the impossible just to _know_ , had traded away that which he all-too-clearly deemed unimportant for the thrill of new knowledge, for the sake of the _work_. And now, it seemed, he was to pay his price and John – well, John was not ready to let him go.

He remembered the light, had encountered it twice when impossible things had threatened his life. Once, sibilant, incapacitating words and once the cold, creeping touch of a man with curiously patterned skin. In the moments before the flash of light, of pain, he remembered a voice in his mind telling him if he just went to sleep for a little while, all would be okay. He would be home safe, out of danger, with those he loved.

As the man encircled his wrist with one pale, cold hand, John remembered thinking that those words, that world, weren’t what he wanted at all. When the light came that time, he screwed his eyes tight and woke staring up at the dull canvas of his medical tent. He remembered the guilty sense of relief at the hot, dry air and the hard cot underneath him, having half expected to wake in a plush bed in London.

No light came when a bullet ripped through his shoulder and left him, bloody and screaming, in the shadows of the Afghan mountains.

 _Please, God, let me live_ , he’d uttered, and yet it was without much faith. If it was a deal the terms had yet to make themselves known. He’d survived, but the return of his life had less to do with God than with cool grey eyes that promised danger. Sherlock accepted the supernatural as evidenced; it occurred, therefore was not impossible. He believed in it as he believed in all facts: a religion of reason.

Sherlock believed in truth; John believed in Sherlock.

++

Sherlock had long lived his life like the end was mere seconds away; however, with the wet, reeking breathe of the hellhounds on his heels the approaching end suddenly seemed more daunting.

++

He wasn’t easy to track down, the sly, charming man who had let slip the existence of people – creatures – who could, with a snap and a kiss, give you your darkest desires. Sherlock had never known his name, had been unable to unearth it through his many contacts and debts called in. Languid and disenchanted, the man lurked in his mind as a soul operating within his own terrifying morality.

The man who ensured all got what they deserved, it was whispered. _Is this what I deserve_ , Sherlock wondered, _and why?_

He found him finally in a house that, for all exterior appearances, was long-abandoned. Inside, however, it was full of theatrically dramatic furniture, tables laden with feasts to please a god, and fawning, superficially beautiful women. The man snapped his fingers and the women left; Sherlock refused the offered seat.

“So, Sherlock, what the hell do you want?” He leaned back, one arm across the back of the settee. Despite the casual tone of his voice, his eyes narrowed minutely, a hint of annoyance, of impatience with what he clearly perceived to be petty human problems. Sherlock wasn’t sure what this man was but was under no illusion that he suffered from the small vexations of mortality.

“You sent me to him. That man – demon.” Sherlock struggled over the word but kept his tone accusatory.

The man scoffed. “Don’t be an idiot. You took yourself to him; I merely suggested the possibility.”

“But you knew what he was.”

“Of course I did. And I knew you’d take the deal, foolish, impulsive moron you are.” Sherlock gritted his teeth. “And let me guess. Now you want to get out of it and you’ve come crawling to me to beg for help.”

“No, actually.” The man’s eyes narrowed further. “I’m willing to admit that I’m somewhat less eager to taste death now than a decade ago, but that’s not exactly what I’m here about.”

“Go on.” He sat up a little straighter on the garish velvet settee, interest piqued.

“He tried – the demon –”

“Crowley.”

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware demons had names.” The man rolled his eyes. “Crowley then. It’s been ten years: ten years, three weeks and a day. He’s sent his dogs after me three times and three times they’ve been repelled. Twice I’ve been attacked by people whose eyes flash black. Both times, the same brilliant, violent white light repelled them. When we all woke they had no memory of what happened.” Sherlock remembered their wide, bewildered stares, eyes clear but fearful.

Through the whole narrative, the man had steadily leaned forward until his chin was cupped in his palms and his attention rapt. “A white light repelled them?” Sherlock nodded. “And you were left with, what, one hell of a hangover?”

“Essentially, yes. I’ve gotten caught up in more brawls and been nearly stabbed by more criminals than I have in the past decade and emerged unscathed each time.”

The man leaned back, body collapsing against the settee cushions. “Fuck. A fucking archangel. Just what I need.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, you’re not fucking excused, especially if it’s your fault there’s an archangel watching London. I was getting so fond of jolly old England.” He jumped up and began pacing.

Sherlock reached one arm out as if to stop him, but drew it back. “But – an archangel?”

“Yes, demons, archangels, what aren’t you getting here? But the question is, why you? Why are you special?” Sherlock bristled. “Yes, yes, I know brilliant consulting detective. Blah blah blah. That’s not enough for the protection of a fucking archangel.”

“John said it had happened to him before this, before he met me.”

He whirled and glared at Sherlock. “John?”

“Yes, my –” _friend? Boyfriend? Partner?_ The man began to grin.

“This John. Is he a writer, by any chance?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “He keeps a blog, dull and derivative though it may be.”

His grin grew wider. “And he loves you, I’m sure. Nauseating. Prophets never do know how to keep their distance anymore.” Sherlock just gaped. “Well, I’ve stayed talking to you far too long. Ciao!” He started toward the door.

“Wait!” He stopped and looked over his shoulder impatiently. “I’ll admit this is not an area I am, well, familiar with. Could you explain just a little more fully?”

“No.” Sherlock’s brows knitted together; he felt worried, out of his depth. Something in his expression must have incited some pity in the man. “Fine. I’ll tell you this much. As long as this John cares about you and writes about you, nothing from hell will be able to touch you.

“If you still want to know more, there’s a book somewhere over there –” he gestured to the corner of the room where a pile of cushions was piled haphazardly, “with some of the basics.”

He strode out of the room and Sherlock, to his surprise, watched the piles of food, the dramatic furniture, and the luxurious fabrics fade away before his eyes. He scrambled to unearth the book; its solid weight reassuring in his hands.

++

John’s relief when he walked through the door, alive and unscathed, was matched only by his anger that he’d gone out alone.

“After all we’ve been through in the past few weeks, all the fucking close calls, and you still think it’s okay to run off like that and leave me behind?” John’s hands clutched at Sherlock’s forearms, nearly shaking him in his fury.

“I had to find answers.” Sherlock gestured, rather ineffectually, with the heavy tome in one hand.

John released him and stepped back, eyes narrowing. “Answers?”

“Yes, and what I’ve found out is most interesting.” John was beginning to crack, to reveal that ever-latent interest in Sherlock’s methods, the fascination he held for the whirling of his mind. Sherlock nudged him toward the sofa and began to recount his visit, pacing the floor as he absently shuffled through the book.

As he wound down, he hazarded a glimpse at John. His ire mostly gone, John leaned forward, bracing himself against his knees and following Sherlock’s every word. A deep wrinkle still showed between his eyebrows, but less in anger than consideration.

“A prophet?” John’s voice held more than a hint of scepticism.

“Apparently.”

“Hmm.” John’s face, still tense as he considered Sherlock’s words, wrinkled around the eyes. Sherlock waited; two years he’d known the man and yet he found he couldn’t predict John’s response. John squeezed the bridge of his nose before flashing Sherlock a quick smile – the smile that meant he’d decided, against all better judgment, to trust Sherlock. “If you’re the second coming, then God help us all.”

Sherlock huffed a short laugh and John, grinning, joined in. “I mean, for god’s sake, you’re bad enough now; heaven knows what you’d be like with apostles.” John grabbed his wrist and tugged him down next to him on the sofa. “Not to mention bloody miracles.” He kissed Sherlock softly then murmured against his lips, “This feels a bit wrong. Do you suppose I’m supposed to go all celibate and ascetic now?”

“Don’t you dare,” Sherlock growled, pulling his body closer. John willingly met his mouth again, moving against him with the languorous yield of long-held affection.

As he touched John’s now-familiar body, stroking his battle-roughened skin and capturing soft moans from his mouth, Sherlock tried not to say goodbye.

++

The trap was easy to mark on the wood floor of the sitting room, under the threadbare Edwardian carpet. He must be quick; John’s only off to the shops. He hadn’t agreed to leave until Sherlock salted the doors and windows right in front of him. Sherlock draws his finger through the salt on the windowsill as soon as John’s shoulders round the corner.

The spell drudged up his rusty schoolboy Latin, somehow undeleted in the corners of his brain, unused for decades beyond medical terminology. It required a few curious ingredients, but not many stranger than his usual acquisitions. It was certainly more complicated than the charm-box he had buried ten years ago, but then, demons only want to be found when there’s a deal to be made.

“Why, hello there, gorgeous.” Crowley took a step toward Sherlock, toeing the invisible edge of the circle, and reached out one finger to ghost over Sherlock’s jawline, mere whispers away. Sherlock held his gaze, determined not to flinch. “You…” he drew out the pause, looking Sherlock up and down with a gaze at once covetous and annoyed. “You, my dear, are being _very_ trying.”

“Am I now?” Sherlock’s drawl in response was just as dry, just as haughty, refusing to comply with Crowley’s admonitions. He took one step back, just because he could and Crowley couldn’t, and crossed his arms.

Crowley sighed, a theatrical, put-upon huff. “You know you are. Ten years I gave you, ten good years. These last two _very_ good by the looks of it.” His eyes slide past Sherlock to John’s armchair, the union flag pillow squashed haphazardly into the corner of the seat.

Sherlock forced his voice nonchalant to calm the rising bile. “Quite good, in fact. I find I’m rather disinclined to end them.”

Crowley huffed a laugh, taking two paces within his confines. “That is not part of the arrangement, I’m afraid.”

“Time for a new arrangement, then, don’t you think?” Sherlock blinked placidly.

Crowley spun around to face him, taking one very deliberate step to the edge of the demon’s trap. “There are rules for a reason,” he hissed, “you ignorant little cunt.”

“But you can’t, can you? The protection’s not quite as strong when John’s not around – it’ll let in certain malevolent beasts,” he adds with some distaste, “– but the instant you or your dogs try to hurt me: poof.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate. Crowley narrowed his eyes and Sherlock knew he had him.

“So,” Sherlock continued, pacing in front of the demon’s cage, “I propose a new deal. You can’t kill me – you know you can’t – while John’s protection exists. So, stop trying.”

“Some deal. What the bloody fuck do I get out of this?”

“Me.”

“What? I’m sick of games, pretty boy, tell me what you mean.”

“You can have me, my soul, just as we agreed. As soon as John’s dead.” He held up one finger, glaring at Crowley. “Of natural rather than unnatural causes. John lives as long a life as he is fated to live,” Sherlock half-rolled his eyes at the notion of fate but continued, “and his soul goes to God or the bloody angels and mine goes to you.”

“Why? Why refinance, as it were, when avoiding payment was going so well for you?”

“Because I’m bloody sick of your hellhounds, Crowley! We’re sick of your dogs and your minions, sick of the annoyance and the interruptions. It’s gotten quite dull, to tell you the truth, and John –” Sherlock broke off, swallowing his words.

“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Little Johnny not a fan of puppies?”

Sherlock averted his eyes. “It seems the archangel’s interference causes him some…discomfort.”

“And you’ll do anything to keep your sweetiepie from getting hurt. How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out you’re only alive as long as he is? Not to mention that your soul will be down under for all of eternity.”

Swallowing, Sherlock raised his eyes to meet Crowley’s. “He won’t find out.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Jesus, with the self-sacrifice and the lies and the secrets. You two are the model of a healthy relationship.”

Sherlock straightened his shoulders and stepped closer to Crowley. “What John knows or doesn’t isn’t your business, demon. Do you accept the deal or don’t you?”

Crowley narrowed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Seems I don’t have a choice. Well, then, pretty boy, one more kiss before I go?” Sherlock made a snort of disgust but stepped his toes over the devil’s trap, holding himself stiffly as Crowley grabbed his collar and pressed their lips together. When he pulled back, Crowley sighed and gestured to the floor. “Wanna give a guy a hand?”

With the toe of his shoe, Sherlock flipped the carpet back and, using his heel, scratched the marks, breaking the trap. With one last glare, Crowley disappeared.

++

The barking ceased. As the years went on, Sherlock stopped looking over his shoulder, stopped waiting for the bite. In step next to him, John never stopped watching.

They didn’t speak of the all-too-apparent deal behind Sherlock’s extended life. John did what he could to keep them alive and, barring that, to make sure the world knew they had lived: he soldiered on, spinning stories out of adrenaline, out of justice, out of love. He wrote down mostly true things and left the rest between the lines.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from this Dylan Thomas poem:  
> Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.  
> (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)  
> In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor  
> Sewing a shroud for a journey  
> By the light of the meat-eating sun.  
> Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun,  
> With my red veins full of money,  
> In the final direction of the elementary town  
> I advance for as long as forever is.
> 
> The two creatures John encounters are based loosely on legends of Zahhāk/Aži Dahāka, a Persian/Zoroastrian myth of a man/dragon/serpent and the jinn/djinn as it appears in Supernatural canon.


End file.
